Why Giving Back is Not Enough

Why Giving Back Isn’t Enough
By Darren Walker
During this season of giving, I will join millions of Americans in volunteering to feed the homeless, contributing to clothing drives and donating to poverty-fighting charities. Yet I worry that through these acts of kindness, I absolve myself, of asking deeper questions about injustice and inequality. We Americans are a remarkably big-hearted people, but I believe the purpose of our philanthropy must not only be generosity, but justice.
The origins, of formal philanthropy date from at least 1889, when the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie composed his “Gospel of Wealth.” It was the peak of the Gilded Age, when inequality had reached extreme levels. Carnegie argued, as many still do, that inequality is an unavoidable condition of the free-market system — and that it was even desirable, if the promise of wealth incentivized hard work. Philanthropy, he believed, would ease the pressure of rising social anxiety that followed from inequality — ameliorating the afflictions of the market without altering the market system itself.
During the 20 th century, iconic Ameri-can families — Gates, Knight, MacAr-thur, Mellon, Rockefeller—followed Carnegie’s lead, endowing and expanding foundations that built schools and libraries, developed vaccines, revolutionized agriculture and advanced human freedom. My own organization, the Ford Foundation, has given billions to support everything from public television in the United States to microlending in Bangladesh.
And yet, for all the advances made in the last century, society’s challenges may have outpaced philanthropy’s resources. Today, the cumulative wealth of the most generous donors seems a pittance compared with the world’s trillions of dollars’ worth of need. Generosity is no longer enough.
The world may need a reimagined charter of philanthropy — a “Gospel of Wealth” for the 21st century — that serves not just American philanthropists, but the vast array of new donors emerging around the world.
This new gospel might begin where the previous one fell short: addressing the underlying causes that perpetuate human suffering. In other words, philanthropy can no longer grapple simply with what is happening in the world, but also ‘with how and why.
Feeding the hungry is among our society’s most fundamental obligations, but we should also question why our neighbors are without, nutritious food to eat Housing the homeless is an imperative, but we should also question why our housing markets are so distorted. As a nation, we need more hivestmentin education, but not without questioning educational disparities based on race, class and geography.
Our self-awareness — our humility — shouldn’t be limited to examining the problems. It should include the. structures of solutions, like giving itself. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said not long before his assassination, “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.” It is, after all, an offspring of the free market; it is enabled by returns on capital.
And yet, too often, we have declined to question our own circumstances: a system that produces vast differences in privilege, and then tasks tire most privileged with improving the system.
Whatever our intentions, the-‘truth is that we can inadvertently widen inequality in the course of making money, even though we claim to support equality and justice when giving it away. And while our end-of-year giving might support Worthy organizations, we must also ask if these financial donations contribute to larger social change.
In other words, “giving back” is necessary, but not sufficient. We should seek to bring about lasting, systemic change, even if that change might adversely affect us. We must bend each act of generosity toward justice
We, as foundations and individuals, should fund people, their ideas and organizations that are capable of addressing deep-rooted injustice. We should ensure that the voices of those most affected by injustice—women, racial minorities, the poor, religious and ethnic minorities and L.G.B.T. individuals — help decide where and what philanthropy puts money behind, not in simply receiving whatever philanthropy decides to give them.
We can wield data and technology, see through a diversity of viewpoints, and draw upon a century of philanthropy’s success and failure to identify and address the barriers holding people back.
This modern giving charter should look different in different settings. At the Ford Foundation, our efforts will focus oninequality: not just wealth disparities, but injustices in politics, culture and society that compound inequality and limit opportunity. We will ask questions like, are we hearing — and heeding — those who understand the problems best? What can we do to leverage our privilege to disrupt the drivers of inequality?
Others in philanthropy will take differ ent, but no less effective, approaches. Many already are answering King’s call, working intensely toward a world that renders philanthropy unnecessary. Ulti mately, we each must do Our part to en sure that giving not only makes us feel better, but also makes our society more just.
Darren Walker is the president of the Ford Foundation.